Chanteur's Gambit
by Andrea Foxx
Summary: The borrowed army's march to Nevassa was a long, hard one full of many risks and looming dangers. A single risky flight averted at least one of them.


Daien was not necessarily a harsh country, but to Crimea's weary improvised army it felt like every barb the land could have born leapt before their feet. The Daiens ransacked their own crop fields and annexed the farms, keeping Crimea from plundered supplies. The roads crawled with footsoldiers. Towns shut their doors, organized militias as they passed to harass them. Slowly and steadily, they crept north to the capital. Sometimes, on what felt like hands and knees. Bright banners became threadbare, but still they slogged on-- cross country, up the highways, and over fens and moors where no bounty grew.

There were days when the sun almost stood still, and their marches stretched on forever until forgiving evening came. There were days that passed too quickly, full of swords and full of screaming men. Then were days that Soren squinted into the glare, stumbled over broken ground to catch the rest of the strike team, and shouted himself hoarse with orders.

It was one of those days.

A thrown axe whistled through the air inches from Boyd's nose, though the man never was able to reciprocate. The offending soldier fell instantly, throat rent apart by Lethe's claws. With a wild yowl, she bristled her fur and turned to the next target. Blood spattered the ground as Zihark cut into the few axemen approaching the rear, staining boots as they shuffled onward. It was Nephenee who bravely cut the path forward, no man daring to approach the front for her pikework. In that way the little decoy group made their way slowly to the cover of the thick scrub forest, achingly so far away. Every yard was a victory. Amidst the shuffling defense was Reyson, his chest heaving and skin cold.

The sinewy wings of a screaming wyvern bore down from the sky, beating for the heron amidst the carnage. With an exhausted wave of the hand, Soren slew that one himself. The summoned wind bit into the dirt for yards around, spraying shrapnel everywhere. Unmoved, Reyson sang on, with not the slightest quiver of the voice to mar his work. For all of the long, long hours the magic in that voice did much to bolster them.

But men had been slain that day, and the company knew it. It was all they could do to keep out of that predicament themselves. Soren scowled. It was one of those days.

The causeway beside them had once swarmed with soldiers. From their work, the count had been whittled down to the barest few, and as the opposition thinned they found a moment's peace. The highways to Daien's capital were wide and well-built, but they were infinitely dangerous to their army. Roads could be held, and that was unfortunate when one had to move a front north. To make time that day, the causeway had to be taken. Which meant long hours for an army slogging through a forest, with only a few on the rear to thin straggling saboteurs.

Ironic. Associated with a band of mercenaries, only to get the local hired men out for blood.

"We should have been in there hours ago!" exclaimed Boyd, as soon as a lull appeared in the fighting. "We have to hurry! Everybody else is probably on the highway by now!"

Soren said nothing, but deeply wished that Boyd would be silent as well. His aching feet sped, stumbling up the trampled hillocks to the forest. A wide swath of hill stretched before them as they rejoined the road, tapping their muddied boots on the slatestones. Now they would hurry. There would be no more delays.

In that spirit, it was only Lethe that could hear Soren curse under his breath and she said nothing of it.

The dells below the rise of the road were black with a river of dark armor, scuttling like beetles. The tip of the march licked the forest, and through the browned fields an army poured into the trees once contact had been established.

"How many do you estimate?" asked Zihark gravely.

"Five hundred," Soren said, clenching his fists. "At least."

"Oh no," groaned Boyd. He tightened the bandage on his arm. "What about Ike?"

Boyd pointed down the road as it was engulfed by the dark, close forest. The overhanging eaves so resembled a hungry maw swallowing the causeway that the point had been sure to make a mark on all present. Soren marked it with a lowered brow and hard-set eyes.

Of course the forts that had been reported as emptied of men had been quietly waiting in ambush for them to pass. He should have seen it coming. Somebody, or several somebodies, meant to take them from behind as they were marching and ill-rested to engage any enemy.

The bane of any strategy, thought Soren. Counter-intelligence. He didn't doubt that his own secret agents were excellent, but the ploy of the not-abandoned forts had been calculated as a deliberate strike at his trust in them. Soren had not expected the almost-sacked countryside to house such a dangerous gambit. Daien emptied all possible defenses for the area to catch them off guard-- and they had no way of knowing that they had been seen and that their ambush had been noticed after all.

At the sight Soren felt just as tired as he had been before and thoroughly unmoved by the show of desperation, if that was what it was. But he did wish Ike had not ordered him to take the detail, to cut him off so far away...

No, never mind. If he hadn't taken the detail, the ambush would have been a nasty surprise for the slow-moving army caravan on the road.

"We need to get to Ike right away," Boyd said. "Come on, we have to hurry!"

"Trouble is, Ike's moving too," Nephenee said, albeit quietly.

"What?"

Nephenee glanced to the side, minded her pike and said nothing more for lack of words.

Soren cleared his throat. It felt it terribly sore. "We're racing him. If he's marching, it will take that much longer to catch the caravan."

"It's too far," echoed Zihark. His face began to fall. "The road twists too much. Either that or risk the woods to cut time... We'll have to run twice as far."

"I'll go," Lethe said, flexing her claws. "The distance is nothing to me. I am faster than all of you."

"Absolutely not. You're exhausted, and you know it," snapped Soren. "I won't have you stuck halfway with two legs, no axe, and ten soldiers lurking at the side of the road."

Her fur stood on end. "You still have no faith in my abilities, human?"

"There is no faith, sub-human," Soren replied. "There's only common sense at work here-- obviously something you don't have."

"I'll bury my claws in you, skinny little--"

"Please, enough!"

Reyson's wings rose-- white as they were, he managed to look unexpectedly large for a man with such narrow arms.

"While we're standing here screaming at each other, the rest of the army is in danger. Not just Ike, but everyone. We've got their lives in our hands," he said.

He was entirely serious.

"How far for us would it be to the caravan?"

Soren paused sharply, deeply considering the calculations. "Likely seven miles by road. Five as the crow flies."

"Or the heron," replied Reyson.

* * *

This had been a legitimate idea, Reyson reminded himself.

None of this had any bearing on that he was being shot at.

This was a legitimate idea, he repeated. The archers made it difficult, so he flew a little higher. To make it as fast as possible, unfortunately he had passed over the first copse of trees the majority of soldiers had been under, and although he had long outstripped them he knew he'd been seen. But no, he had almost made it. Perhaps a spare mile and a half was all that was left...

He pushed the air behind him as hard as he was able. Already his muscles ached and burned, but Reyson willed himself to ignore it. He was being useful-- that was enough. This was a feat of strength. Really, he could almost imagine a ghostly Tibarn off his left, urging him on, telling him... telling him..

Watch out for that arrow

To his credit, Reyson had not been expecting to see an arrow up so high. Whatever bow had shot it, it was huge and mighty and probably took a bear of a beorc to string. The lucky part was that Reyson saw it fly before it struck. The unfortunate part was that he was unable to dodge it completely.

With a screaming thwip it stuck deeply into the feathers of his right wing, blowing three clear away. Reyson reeled from the impact, tried to right himself, but he found he was steadily falling. He flapped furiously, but was unable to dislodge the arrow itself-- it restricted his movement, and before he knew it he looked to see the tops of thorny trees spinning far too close for comfort.

Legitimate. The word hissed in the back of his mind as he spiraled facefirst to the ground. His automatic reaction was to pull wings in as close as possible, and pray that his forearms were enough to brace for impact. He hadn't had a fall in a long time, and never one from so high. Then again, he hadn't been involved with many arrows until recently.

The first branch cracked and broke under his elbows, feeling like an iron bar. The second bounced him on his back, where he tumbled to scrape a great pine tree, and finally after a hailstorm of smaller twigs grasping at his clothes he met the cold ground with a dull grinding smack, skidding a little until he was still at last.

It took a few seconds for the Heron Prince to confirm that he was not dead. That short time of doubtful, aching blackness was alien and jarring, but as he opened his eyes the sky was still up and the ground was still down: trees still grew, and he could still smell dirt. A lot of dirt-- he'd fallen into the leftovers of a half-dry mud wallow. Experimentally, he began to move. Sore, but no screaming pains. Shakily, he rose to his feet. A miracle: no broken bones, no cracked ribs, nothing more than scrapes, cuts, and raw bruises. A few smaller feathers had been raked off, but nothing that would impede him.

The arrow stuck lamely into thick white pinions. Reyson moved to yank it free and felt a tight ache in the muscle of his wing. He'd pulled it; that would be inconvenient if he wished to fly again within the day.

The dense scrubwood air was flat and still, almost stagnant. Overhead stretched a prickly canopy that bent down like gnarled fingers that a bird half Reyson's size would have been hard-pressed to escape. But it was the atmosphere that was important. The dead, windless wood did not explain the rustling in the brush far away behind him. Laguz did not make such noise. Neither did wild beasts.

And so Reyson ran. He moved his wings to take flight again, despite the tense, throbbing pain. But the boughs overhead were much too close to break free of: by foot it would have to be. The noise of pursuit urged him on, though his legs screamed in protest. He felt strangely heavy to himself- wings were not the best burden to bear on the sprint. He folded them strict to his back, pinning close until he felt needles and thorns in his shoulders.

It was a sudden thing when his boot snagged on a rock or root and he went sailing forward. A tumble, he cried out, and a sudden cold wetness in his face-- seeping through his shirt. Reyson found himself sitting in a tiny, shallow scumpond bent over by weary evergreens.

But most of all, it was silent. Reyson listened, breathing heavily until he finally settled. He stood, soaked and feathers ruffling, and waited a moment. No swords or black armor. For the moment, he was alone.

He confronted the fact that he was also quite lost. The fall from up high, running and stumbling had turned him around. If he had been able to take flight and see from the air again the correct direction would have been easy to divine. But stuck under the spiny branches, Reyson really was no better than a beorc at finding his way. He wondered how they managed on the ground all the time, unable to fly where they pleased as a bird, nor smell a path as a beast.

Though, he thought, not completely helpless as a beorc. Reyson still had a way or two left, now that he had the time to think instead of run. He stepped free of the pond and wrung his hair, straightened, and cleared his throat.

The first notes were a little unsure, wary of who else might be listening. But in tenor glory he went to ask the forest his question, where the trees thinned, where men passed, where horses ran up and down. He related the road, and urgency.

A mere new-growth woodland could not help but heed a lord of the mighty Serenes. In creaks, groans, the music of leaves, the trees replied. They whispered of a strip of salted ground and trodden stones, where boughs were trimmed away and hundreds of marching feet stamped and tramped the earth.

Reyson noted that, but continued. His voice rose, inquiring about a particular set of boots, ones that walked the long road yet were still young. Boots that trod at the head of an army from the south, that passed quickly as he sang. He posed an example of great deeds, vouching for the character of the one trees could not know quite as Ike, but as simply new life heard on the wind.

Unlike the boots that now approach, said the trees.

Sticks broke under some exemplary boots by Reyson's flank, no, both flanks. Scouts emerged from the bush, drawn by song. As soon as they saw wings, the pair drew weapons. There was no running- he was not faster when they were so close and could catch him midstride. Hammer thoughts pounded his skull, things he might do. What would Tibarn do? What would Ike do? Even, what would Naesala do?

He then noticed something strange. Funny, he thought. Neither of these have said anything about my wings, or of the price I would fetch on the slave market, or that I am a heron at all. They only stand there shaking as if they'd never seen a--

He rose his wings, found them to be dulled and gray by dirt and foul water. Mud streaked his clothes, tatted and browned his hair.

They are blindeyed beorc that can't see past a little grime, or Daeins who are ignorant to the history of Serenes at all. They mistake me for a bleached raven, or even for a pale hawk.

The irony of that was a little biting. But he wondered as he transformed, feeling his form fan out and his wings spread. Their fear was still palpable to him. Usable.

On a wild hope he flew at one, making the most frightening sound he was able to. Something loud, without pitch; he took anything to startle them. Reyson didn't connect, and he hadn't intended to in the first place, but swept right over their ducking, screaming heads to narrowly avoid a black tree in his path. He heard their cursing and confusion behind him but it did nothing to soothe the whanging ache in his left wing as he fluttered through the underbrush away from the pursuers.

Their anxiety had been biting and negative. It could be even funny that in need he was able to fashion himself fearsome to unknowing eyes. But even if there was a certain thrill in others shying and quaking before him, Reyson found it highly overrated in his eyes.

* * *

Ike was not having a particularly good day, either. But unlike certain others, his day had been a quiet one.

This was worse for Ike.

He had always been a man of strong gut instinct, something Titania warned him of and Soren often berated him for. But there was nothing much he could do, or wanted to do about it. He simply worked best under his own methods, and that was unlikely to change. There were times when he was glad to have Soren around, and times he was happy to have Titania advise him.

That was the thing, he knew. He knew it ever since Greil had left them. If they were going to be strong, the only way to do that was to be strong together. Even missing one vital member made things worlds more difficult for the rest.

This was partially to blame for Ike's bad day. Soren was not with him, and that was more than annoying. Mostly because the grinding, looming feeling was in his gut again; something did not feel quite right with their method of advance. But he didn't know what, and it was next to impossible to redirect an entire caravan simply because he felt slightly unsure. Besides, off the road there was nowhere to go but forward and back. He regretted letting Soren lead the cover team. He needed the word at the moment to at least confirm or argue against the point that he wasn't crazy-- there was something amiss with the woodland highway.

Ike was having a quiet day, and he didn't like it. He, too, marched with the army north but he had almost reached for his sword three times that day when nothing had been amiss. There was a point where quiet became too quiet, and without Soren there to whittle sound evidence out of the situation he was left to have the worst possibilities he could imagine tickle the back of his mind. Just in case anything went wrong.

None of these plans had anything to do with a streaking gray blur bursting out of the underbrush. It was a heartbeat before any of his men recognized it as a laguz, and another before it shifted form to collapse at the feet of Ike himself. Ten bows drew back, readied to fire had it been a Feral One.

Ike initially did not recognize the man that struggled before him with clothes torn and splatted with mud and blood, wings ground with dirt and stuck with leaves. The edges of the laguz's flight pinions were slightly tattered, in severe need of preening. The man's hair was very long, hanging limp and matted in a vague yellowish color-- Ike couldn't tell-- there was too much dust caked on.

But as he stood up, the laguz quaked under exhaustion. The face betrayed his identity very plainly, no matter how many small cuts and bruises it had gathered.

"Reyson?" asked Ike, almost grabbing the heron's shoulders as he stood unsteady. "What happened to you?"

Reyson nodded, but brushed Ike off as if to deny help. With his wings drooping he was off-balance but he soon managed, even if shakily. "Nothing," he said wearily. "I'm fine. I have a message for you."

"I don't think you're anywhere near fine," said Ike, but motioned insistently for the gathering crowd to leave them. They mostly did. "What happened to you? If you flew it was a straight shot north... what was it that did all of this?"

"Ike, if you would let me speak I would tell you," responded Reyson. "Soren sent me to tell you that there is a force marching through the forest as we speak. It means to surround you from the woods and catch you as you are marching."

"And you risked flying miles right over the head of an army, in plain sight, to tell me?"

"I was the only one for the job."

Ike stared. "That's insane." He paused. "Are the others all right?"

"They will be if you stop marching," said Reyson. "They'll catch up and then there won't be an ambush."

"I'll trust you on that one," Ike agreed. "You look like hell."

Reyson still managed to give a tired smile. Accomplished, even. "Don't I?"

Ike couldn't help but feel a little lifted. The sight of the Heron Prince in complete ruins was almost surreal. "Go get cleaned up and then take a rest. I'm having nightmares just looking at you."

"Nightmares of what?"

"Go! Before Janaff sees you. Ulki's probably heard already, but I might be able to explain before he flies off. Or else Tibarn will know all about things all wrong within the week."

Reyson was distantly horrified.

"And go see Mist about the cuts. I promise she won't tell anyone."

"So it will be our secret then."

Ike looked at the Heron; the heron looked back, and they both knew that word would get out sooner rather than later. But for all of the men that would still be there in the morning because of the business, Ike felt that it had become a decidedly better day.

"That the Heron Prince can outpace an entire army? I'm not sure it needs to be."


End file.
